The Bread of His Presence

“He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.” 2 Corinthians 9:10

When Lord Yahweh brought His people out of Egypt, He proved to them that He is able to provide both land and bread. I think that probably meant something different than my own experience. Man, I would have to confess that in my entire life, these two provisions have never been directly connected. In other words, the land I own and the bread I own aren’t related, because I have never once used my land to bring forth bread! I haven’t even brought forth tortillas from my own land. But to Moses’s people, land meant food! In fact, his spies reported that the land of Canaan abounded with grapes on the vine, figs, and pomegranates.

To Israel, an inheritance of land meant bread!

Recently, as I sat under a shade tree with the Lord on a mild January day in Florida, He put my attention on this verse in 2 Corinthians, and He brought a loaf of bread to my mind. I knew that He was teaching me about His gifts and my spiritual development. With my eyes closed, hearing the rustling of lizards in the palm trees, and sitting in my lawn chair, a question formed in my mind, “How would you, Joshua Robinson, use land to bring forth bread?" As I stood from my chair and walked a nature trail pondering this lesson, I considered that the process of land-to-bread would look something like the following.

TO BRING FORTH BREAD FROM THE LAND.

// Developing an Abundant Spiritual Life //

Our benevolent God grants land of promise to His people. For Israel, it was the fertile crescent of the middle east. But for the Christian, upon your salvation, you receive freedom and opportunity within all the promises of God. He even speaks personal promises to your own heart. But what is to be done with these promises? The land must be broken up! You must surrender those promises right back to God and say like Shadrach, “My God is able to deliver me, but even if not, I will worship Him.” And like Job, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.” You are taught to break up the hardened ground of your heart. You can do this by allowing the Lord to have full control of those promises. Perhaps He will fulfill them in 50 years from now or even in eternity, but you can trust Him. Wait on the fulfilled promise. Patiently allow the breaking up of your will in the process. This is the pathway to bread.

Once your land is tilled, you’ll take up the seeds of righteousness that the faithful King has given you by His Son through His Spirit. Remember our key verse? “He will multiply your seed for sowing.” Every Christian I know has enjoyed great, wonderful, spiritual blessings of peace, wisdom, power, and fellowship. These seeds represent last season’s harvest. Jesus has been harvesting righteous seeds since His ascension to Heaven, and the righteousness in your life comes by way of the Christ working through men and women to bring it to you. The trick here is that in this moment, each believer has to decide if he will consume these blessings or if he will surrender them to the soil. A wise man knows that a portion of the harvest must be plunged into the earth in order to preserve next season’s bread. So you bury them. Once again, you give your blessings to the Lord’s control. You plant the seeds and pray for rain. Your patient faithfulness will be rewarded.

In a short time, there is evidence of growth! Perhaps your friends and family notice a difference in your life or maybe your Kingdom ministry reveals the green shoots of new life. But you’re a long way from having bread on the table. And you know that the good Husbandman prunes a fruit-bearing plant in order to maximize production. If you’ll surrender your growing ministry and fresh sprouts to God, He will take away. You’ll ache as you watch some of the greenery be cut away. It may look like people leaving you or doors closing in your life. But you’ll maintain faith that this cutting will bear much fruit. Israel was so impacted by the enormous cluster of grapes they found in the Promised Land that they named it Cluster Valley. Yes! One day you will see clusters of fruit, fields of wheat, and tables of bread! Choose patience.

After a time, you will notice that the painful breaking, burying, and pruning has resulted in abundant fruit. At this point, you have food! And once again, with seeds in your hand, you have the choice to consume or to continue. Grain isn’t bread. Bread is what you’re after. You must surrender to the mill of trials. Bread requires grinding and wine requires crushing. There is no skipping any single step in this long process. But you have His promise! So you submit to the mill. Trials come. Your body breaks. Each day the outer man perishes, but the inner man is strengthened. Your precious harvest has become flour. You are so close.

Following your crushing, the Spirit of God pours out His oil and fire — the final process in bringing out the finest bread is in His kitchen. You’ve been in the Father’s fields, His mill, and His house. In the quietness of His dwelling place, the Lord will gladly take your wheat flour and provide a perfect recipe. He knows the exact process. Dear friend, take heart, He has done this for millions of His children. He is doing it for you. All that is needed is your patience and trust. In the Holy Spirit’s mixing and baking, your wheat comes out of the oven as a piping hot and satisfying loaf of Heaven’s bread!

Through months and years of breaking, surrendering, cutting, and crushing, God is bringing about the finest bread and wine that a human life can offer. The more time you give to this process, the more abundant land, wheat, and bread you’ll have to share with others.

By this point in the journey, you will have become accustomed to His promises and processes. He redeemed the land of your life from broken fields, making them into beautiful vineyards. So now with great ease, you may help yourself to the fruit of God. His gifts will flow in abundance. His Voice is increasingly clearer and nearer. This is Heaven on earth. Though scarred from life, you are seated at His Table as His faithful and abounding child. You’ve learned that joy and suffering are in the same harvest.

Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good.

Only through this path can a soul learn about the Table of the Bread of His Presence.